Gastrodin improves the neurological score in MCAO rats by inhibiting inflammation and apoptosis, promoting revascularization.

Gastrodin (GAS) is an active constituent of Chinese herbal medicine tianma (Gastrodia elata), which is commonly used to extinguish wind (TCM term). Tianma is also widely used to treat various neurological diseases such as stroke, dizziness, epilepsy, etc. Its clinical effect is quite satisfactory. However, the underlying mechanism has not been fully explored. In the present study, we choose a permanent cerebral occlusion model, MCAO, and used multiple methods to investigate the medicine. Our results show a significant improvement in neurological score after 3 days of GAS treatment. In addition, neurons in the hippocampus were rescued within after 7 days GAS treatment. Then we explore the drug's mechanism in the acute phase of stroke. CRP and IL-1β are common inflammatory factors. Elisa showed GAS can reduce these inflammatory factors in serum in the acute phase of stroke. What's more, GAS can up-regulate the expression of Bcl-2 and down-regulate the expression of BAX in the ischemic hemisphere, and the same result is observed in the protein level. The expression of Caspase-3 is also suppressed, indicating GAS has ability to inhibit apoptosis during the acute phase of stroke. On the other hand, GAS can up-regulate the expression of VEGF, thusly promoting micro-vacsular regeneration. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that GAS can alleviate the symptoms of stroke through various mechanisms. GAS might also serve as a potential candidate to treat acute cerebral infarction.